


what are friends for?

by illbeyourreasonwhy



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Rose and Bobby met then Julie and Carrie were childhood best friends, Rose is Julie's mom, ergo Rose and Bobby/Trevor were friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:14:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27460045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illbeyourreasonwhy/pseuds/illbeyourreasonwhy
Summary: A look into Rose and Bobby/Trevor's relationship, from 1995 to 2019.Written for Day 7 of Julie and the Phantoms Appreciation Week: Write something set in canon-verse
Relationships: Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Rose, Ray Molina/Rose
Comments: 18
Kudos: 50
Collections: JATP Appreciation Week





	what are friends for?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Julie and the Phantoms Appreciation Week (Day 7)

At first, Rose doesn’t think too much of it when she meets Bobby.

She’s used to having band members approach her after their soundchecks, to chat, to ask what she thought, sometimes to flirt. Bobby is no different. He’s alright, in a trying-too-hard kind of way, but he’s funny and not half-bad company as she finishes sweeping tables.

They talk for a long time, long enough for him to pause his flirting to start wondering _where the hell did they get to, we’re supposed to be onstage in an hour_. Her break technically just started, and she’s two seconds away from offering to go look around for them when a man approaches Bobby with a grave face.

She’s with him when he receives the news. She is with him as he cries – sobs racking his body as he curls into himself, biting on his fist to muffle his cries. All the while she is there, at a loss, unsure what to do, how to act, still not fully grasping that the three lively boys she spoke to less than two hours ago are now dead.

After a moment she reaches out, lays a hand on his shoulder. It doesn’t feel like enough, not even close, but what else can she do? He reaches up to clasp her hand in his, still shaking, and she pulls him into a hug, heart breaking when he collapses into her embrace. He holds onto her, and she thinks that maybe, at least, it’s something. To ground him, let him know that he is still here. Still alive.

Still alive, even if they aren’t.

They stay with her. Not in a haunting-her-memories-every-day kind of way, not even in a terribly sad way. But she thinks about them a lot, about those three boys who were laughing and smiling, who had music in their souls and their whole lives ahead of them. She still has their demo, and she listens to it from time to time, and a small, regretful part of her winces sadly at the thought that they could have been something great. Should have been something great.

She wasn’t planning on going to their funerals.

She barely knew these boys - didn’t know these boys, really – and she only had one conversation with them, less than two minutes long.

And yet –

It’s one afternoon when she is walking down the street and she passes by a church, glancing towards a procession. A funeral. She reads the name – Reginald Peters – and doesn’t think much of it, until she sees the picture apposed to the name. And she recognises the face. It’s one of the boys whose tragedy has been at the front of her mind these past few days – Reggie, her mind supplies – the one who gave her the t-shirt currently sitting at the bottom of her trunk.

And she feels compelled to go inside. It might have only been one conversation, but it was one of their last. And that feels significant, somehow.

She wasn’t planning on seeing Bobby again, either. His eyes meet hers at the service, his red-rimmed and bearing dark circles, and widen in recognition.

She wasn’t expecting him to want to keep in touch. She assumed she would only remind him of the night he lost his three best friends.

(His three best friends, his band, his blossoming career – so much loss, in so little time.)

But he seeks her out anyways, and they go get coffee together. He doesn’t hit on her, this time. She thinks he might just be looking for a friend. And after all, she might be a reminder of that night, but she was also the one that was there for him, that held him when his world fell apart. His smiles are quieter, sadder. But they’re there.

Over time, he begins to heal.

They become friends over that same time, and she likes to think she helps him through it. She forces him to go out, refuses to let him close himself off to the world and wallow until he joins his bandmates in their untimely death. She takes him out on walks, for the most part, just talking. She hears him laugh for the first time since that first night about a month after they reconnected, watches him freeze at the realisation, sees the almost guilty look on his face.

Survivor’s guilt is a bitch.

Weeks later, she witnesses his first completely unapologetic grin. They’ve gone from walks to hanging out in bars, and he even pushes her to make a move and finally go talk to that photographer she has had a crush on forever. He buys her a celebratory drink when she comes back with Ray’s number and a date planned for the next day.

It takes a little longer, but eventually she is even able to convince him to come watch some of Rose and the Petal Pushers' gigs. She's glad to see he enjoys himself, singing softly along to some of the songs by the end of the night.

Slowly, piece by piece, he starts to put himself back together.

“Thank you, Rose,” he tells her quietly one night when they are curled up on her couch watching _Friends_. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

She smiles. “You would have been okay,” she says, and believes it. She likes to think she helped, but it was Bobby that pulled himself through it all, and she’s proud of him for it.

Six months after the Orpheum, he starts playing again.

His agent is immediately on top of him, and before she knows it Bobby is busy with meetings, and planning for gigs, and devising a marketing plan. He is advised to pick a stage name, to avoid having the memory of Sunset Curve’s tragedy overshadow his music, and Rose suspects it might be good for Bobby to be able to play music without being constantly reminded of the death of his bandmates.

And thus, Trevor Wilson is born.

He gets her tickets to his first show (“Only if you want to, of course” “As if I’d miss it”), and she drags Ray along with her, both of them dancing and singing along to Bobby (Trevor)’s songs. It’s a great evening, one of the best she can ever remember having (and if Rose’s heart skips a beat when Ray kisses her during one of the slower songs, no one needs to know). Bobby makes a beeline for them at the end of the show, and Rose throws her arms around him, heart bursting with how proud of him she is.

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” he tells her earnestly, head still buried in her shoulder. “Thanks for not giving up on me.”

She pulls away, grinning. “What are friends for, huh?”

Before long, gigs turn into bigger venues, and Trevor Wilson blows up. He finishes recording his debut album at the end of the year, and his album is –

“ _Amazing_. I didn’t know you could write like that,” she tells him. Bobby bites his lip, opens his mouth, closes it, and looks away. She assumes that maybe he isn’t used to getting compliments, that he is uncomfortable under the praise, so she swiftly changes the subject. Sort of. “Ray and I danced to _Long Weekend_ last night. He proper swept me off my feet, so I owe you one.”

She grins at him, and after a second he smiles back, although he still seems tense.

“Look, Rose…” he starts hesitantly, and she frowns, suddenly worried. He stalls for a few seconds, seemingly thinking his words over, before smirking. “I’m glad things are going so great with Ray.”

She is sure that wasn’t what he intended on saying, but he no longer looks uncomfortable, so she decides to allow him this one.

“Oh, they’re _so_ great. He actually brought up moving in together the other day, can you believe it?”

He smiles, a genuine smile, and rests his chin on his fist. “Do tell more.”

Rose doesn’t need to be told twice. She launches into a rant about everything she loves about Ray, which of course is a very long rant, but Bobby listens throughout, genuinely listens, and Rose loves him for it.

“I’m really proud of you, you know,” she tells him at the end of the night, because she wants him to know that.

He swallows. “Thanks, Rose.”

Ray is driving her _insane_. She moved in a month ago, and for the most part it’s fine, but it’s a small, cramped apartment, and living with someone means something different than just dating them, and Rose is struggling to adjust to the change.

It hits a boiling point one night during an argument – she isn’t sure why this argument started, something about dish towels not being in the right spot maybe, but what she does know is that it escalated until suddenly they were screaming. (She was screaming. She has never seen Ray raise his voice, and she doesn’t think she ever will. It’s one of the reasons she loves him, but at the moment she is having trouble remembering that.)

Before she knows it, she is storming out after slamming the door behind her and grabbing a cab to Bobby’s new place.

He moved out of his parents’ house as soon as his career took off, and now he lives in a nice house, very spacious, with a huge garden. It’s a beautiful home, but sometimes she thinks it must get lonely for just him.

He lets her in, sits her down at his table and offers her wine, listening to her rant furiously for half an hour. He doesn’t say a word until she finishes.

Then; “Rose, what the hell are you doing?”

That wasn’t the answer she was expecting. “What?”

He lets out a breath. “You love Ray, and he adores you. Why are you here, complaining about him to me, instead of over there to fix things?”

“Well – I –” she splutters. “I’m angry with him!”

“Yes, for stupid reasons.”

She glares at him. Over the last hour her anger has ebbed away into mild annoyance (and maybe a little guilt about the way she left things), but still. She came here to have her frustration validated, not for reasonable wake up calls.

“Hey, you’re my best friend. You’re supposed to support me when I’m arguing with my boyfriend.”

“No, as your best friend, I’m supposed to tell you when you’re being a fucking idiot. Which you are, right now.” He sighs, sets down his glass, and leans forward to meet her eyes intently. “You and Ray are soulmates. Sort it.”

He’s right, of course.

She goes back, and they work things out. She gets used to Ray’s ridiculous order for dish towels, he gets used to her inability to properly fold clothes. They get used to each other’s quirks, start _liking_ them. And Rose falls more in love with him every day.

Weeks go by, then months, then suddenly two years have flown away and Ray is kneeling in front of her, ring in hand, and she sobs as she falls into his arms, saying _yes, yes, of course, a thousand times yes_.

Bobby – who goes by Trevor permanently now, no longer just a stage name – offers to whisk them off to a magical destination for their wedding, but it’s not what either of them want. In the end, they decide on a simple, quiet ceremony with family and friends, and Rose is happier than she can ever remember being. She’s elated the entire wedding reception, sneaking kisses with Ray when they pretend to think no one is looking, receiving Victoria’s tearful embrace and _felicitationes_ , laughing when Trevor gives her the tightest hug she ever remembers getting.

She is _happy_. She and Ray still live in that cramped apartment she moved into almost three years ago, not exactly the glamourous newlyweds home people would expect, still a little small for two people, cozy in its familiarity.

It’s not ideal, but it’s perfect.

And then – then she is pregnant, and yeah, they need a bigger place.

Trevor Wilson has become a household name. He has put out two more albums, and despite the fact that his first one remains clearly more popular, his fans are loyal and his fame isn’t even close to dying out. He is constantly touring around the world, giving sold-out concerts, living out the dream he and his bandmates had, all those years ago. He is more successful than Rose thinks he ever dreamed he could be, constantly surrounded by journalists and paparazzi. He has moved out of that beautiful house and into an outright mansion, with a helicopter parking for good measure.

He and Rose are still friends, though.

“You and Ray are looking for a place, right?” he asks her one day. “My parents are moving out of their old house. I can ask to show you the place before they put it on the market.”

It’s a great house. She falls in love with it before she’s even done seeing the second floor. Trevor gives her the tour, and they end with the garage. It’s only when she walks in and sees the instruments strewn across the place that she remembers him mentioning years ago that his band used to practise here.

“Are these…” She doesn’t finish the sentence, doesn’t have to, because when she turns around to look at him she can read the answer on his face without the need for a single word.

“Yeah,” he answers anyways, voice tight with grief and pain and something else, something she can’t put her finger on, something that doesn’t sit quite right.

“I forgot they were still here,” he adds after a long moment, that same troubling emotion still lacing his voice.

She looks at him, a little lost, unsure what the right thing to do is here. He is clearly lost in thought, eyes clouded with a thousand memories, not all of which look positive.

“Do you want them back?” she asks cautiously.

Something flickers quickly on his face, a flash that almost looks like fear, or guilt. “No, no,” he says hurriedly. He coughs, sounding like he is covering up an emotion. She doesn’t understand why, when she is the one who saw him at his worse, that dreadful summer of ‘95, but then again, so much has changed since then. “No, I – I wouldn’t even know how to play any of this aside from the guitar, and I already have mine.”

He looks at the instruments for a long time, his face unreadable, before shaking himself and turning to her, looking himself once again.

“You should keep them,” he says brightly, surprising her.

“What?”

“Yeah, you should keep them,” he repeats. “You’ll make better use of them anyways. And you could teach this one to play, too,” he adds with a softer smile, gesturing to her belly. “We both know that’s going to be a musician, with a mom like you.”

She smiles back, albeit hesitantly, but when it looks like he truly means it, her smile turns fond. Her days in bands might be over, but her love for music certainly isn’t. Not a day goes back where she doesn’t sing, or write, or play her guitar or piano, and if she’s lucky, her child will share that love with her.

“So, you like the house, then?” Trevor asks as they exit the garage.

“I love it,” she says emphatically.

He smiles, hand on the door handle. He stares at the garage, his old studio, for another long moment. Then he pulls the handle and firmly closes the door.

“We decided on a name.”

“Really?”

She hums, smiling brightly if a little shyly. “Julie if it’s a girl. Carlos if it’s a boy.”

“I love it.”

She grins as she continues chopping vegetables. She and Ray like to have Trevor over for dinner every now and then when he isn’t touring. Ray is running late at work tonight, but Rose doesn’t mind. She likes these little moments when she and Trevor can just talk, just enjoy each other’s company like they did back in the nineties. She loves her life, of course – wouldn’t change it for the world – but she wishes these little talks hadn’t gotten so rare, what with life getting in the way.

Trevor leans against the counter. “You know Isobel is pregnant, too?”

He says it so casually it takes a second for the words to reach her. When they do she looks up, startled, meets his delighted gaze. “That’s amazing,” she says, and before she knows it she is pulling him into a tight hug. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” he says, smiling like he can’t quite believe it yet.

She nudges him, grinning. “Nice to know who my baby’s first playdate will be with.”

He smiles softly, eyes a little brighter than they were a moment before, and she squeezes his hand.

“Now make yourself useful and start peeling these potatoes.”

He lets out a startled laugh but does as he is told. It feels like old times, almost – but better, she thinks, rubbing her belly and feeling a swell of love grow in her.

Julie is – perfect. Really, that is the only word to describe her. She is absolutely, utterly, wonderfully perfect, and Rose wants to cry with how much she loves her, every day. She grows into a wonderful girl, and she and Trevor’s Carrie are thick as thieves while growing up. To Rose’s delight, they’re both little musicians, too, and she can’t count the number of afternoons the three of them spend in her garage-turned-music-studio, singing and dancing and listening to music. (Often they’ll bring out the Trevor Wilson albums, and Carrie will stand on her tiptoes and state proudly, “That’s my dad.” Rose doesn’t miss the way Trevor’s eyes become a little misty when he witnesses that one day.)

The girls grow up, bring Flynn into what is now a trio after she moves in next door to the Molinas, a few years later.

Carlos joins the family, and Rose genuinely doesn’t think her life could get any better. Not when she has Ray, and the two most wonderful children she could ever dream of, and music lighting up every single one of her days.

Isobel up and leaves without warning. Packs her bag and flees the mansion, leaving behind her husband and her ten-year-old daughter.

Rose finds out when Carrie shows up at her door, _alone_ – which would be worrying enough in itself – tears streaming down her face.

“Oh, sweetie,” she says, dropping to her knees and pulling the girl against her chest, trying very, very hard not to show her how worried she is. “What happened?”

It takes a few tries, but after a lot of tears and blubbering, Rose and Ray are able to piece together that Carrie’s mom left, that Carrie’s dad has locked himself in his room, and that Carrie walked the thirty-minute long walk to their house on her own because she didn’t know where else to go.

Rose smooths Carrie’s hair as she meets Ray’s gaze over her head; he nods, and she knows he understands her perfectly.

“Okay, Carrie,” she says softly, still carding through her hair reassuringly, “it’s okay. You can stay here as long as you want, okay?”

Ray takes over, bringing her into the kitchen to make her hot chocolate, while Rose goes to the studio to get Julie. She doesn’t tell her everything, just that Carrie is here and needs her, and Julie is out of there and into the house in a flash.

Then, Rose drives to the Wilson mansion.

As expected, Carrie left the door unlocked, and Rose walks in, making her way up the stairs and to Trevor’s room without hesitation.

It’s locked, like Carrie said, and Rose knocks carefully.

“Trevor? Trevor, it’s Rose.”

There is no answer, and Rose knocks again, starting to worry.

“Trevor?”

She hears a muffled, “Go away, Rose!”

Like hell.

“Trevor!” She knocks louder, then, when that doesn’t work, starts banging on the door. “Trevor, open up!” She is starting to get seriously annoyed, especially when she hears the sound of footsteps getting further away from the door. “Hey, Trevor!” Out of options, she barks out, “ _Bobby_!”

The door whirls open, revealing a bathrobe-clad and red-faced Trevor Wilson.

“It’s Trevor,” he growls. She raises her hands placatingly, but her eyebrows stay raised expectantly. “What do you want?”

“I heard about Isobel.”

He scoffs and turns around, trudging back into his room without another look at her. She follows, watches as he dumps himself onto the couch and takes a swig of the bottle of whiskey resting at his feet.

That’s what makes her snap back into the reason she came here.

“Hey, no. None of that,” she says, moving to pull the bottle away from his grasp.

He struggles for a few seconds, but she doesn’t give in and, upon realising she means business, he relinquishes his hold on the bottle, although he doesn’t look happy about it.

“My wife just walked out on me without warning, Rose,” he says, and for the first time she notices his words are a little slurred. “I think I’m allowed to have a bit of a breakdown.”

Rose leaves the room without answering, makes her way down to the kitchen where she dumps what little whiskey is left down the drain, and pours a glass of water. She takes a steadying breath, before going back upstairs.

She sets the glass in front of Trevor with a, “No.”

He blinks wearily at her. “Come again.”

“No,” she repeats. “I’m sorry, but you don’t get to have a breakdown right now.”

“Oh,” he says slowly, narrowing his eyes, “and why is that?”

She opens a window, trying to get a bit of fresh air into the room, and sits down in front of her friend, nudging the glass closer to him. He takes it and downs it in one go, not looking like he even registers doing it.

She sets her hands on her knees, meeting Trevor’s eyes steadily. She breathes in, making sure to keep her voice steady when she begins to talk.

“I watched you fall apart before, Trevor. I was there.” She remembers it all too well, and she wishes, desperately, that she could go back to being the comforting presence she was in 1995. But this time, she forces her voice to remain hard, leaving no room for argument. “But you don’t get to fall apart this time. You have a daughter who needs you, and you can’t just shut her out. You don’t get to lock yourself in your room and drink and pretend she doesn’t exist. Do you hear me?”

Trevor is quiet for a long time. Rose doesn’t say anything, just waits for him to gather himself together.

“Where is Carrie?” he finally asks, and Rose feels the knot of worry in her lessen just a bit when she discerns genuine concern in his voice.

“She’s with Julie,” she answers delicately. “Ray is with them.”

Trevor lets out a shaky breath. “Good. That’s good.”

Rose sighs, reaches over to grasp his hand. “She can stay with us as long as she wants,” she says, echoing what she told Carrie earlier. “As long as either of you need. But she’s going to need _you_. You’re her father, you’re the only one who really understands what she’s going through.” She pauses then, because she hates what she is going to say next, hates it with a passion, but it needs to be said. “And you and I both know that in a few hours, the press is going to hear about what happened, and you and Carrie are going to be swarmed with media wanting to know every last detail of why Isobel left. She’s _ten_ , Trevor. She can’t do it alone.”

She doesn’t miss the way he flinches when he hears his wife – ex-wife? –’s name, and wonders what exactly went down. But it doesn’t matter now. She squeezes his knee to get him to look back at her.

“She needs you,” she repeats. “And you need to be there for her.”

Trevor stares at her for one beat, two beats, before he nods jerkily, his eyes filling with tears, and his head drops as he lets out a loud sob. Rose moves at once, sitting next to him on the couch and wrapping her arms around him.

“Sleep it off,” she says softly. “You can come pick her up tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he answers, his voice breaking on the single word. She closes her eyes, heart breaking for him, for Carrie, for how hard this must be for them, for how much harder this is going to get.

He goes to bed a few minutes later. And if she leaves her famous hangover cure on his bedside table before leaving, no one needs to know.

Carrie changes in the wake of her mother’s departure.

She stops coming over, for one, and Rose hears from Julie that she becomes closed off, colder, almost. It’s no surprise, but it does make Rose’s heart contract painfully.

Trevor changes, too.

Not in any drastic, dramatic way. It’s just a lot of little, significant changes. His therapist is now on his speed dial. The spare room gets turned into a meditation room. Outings become an excuse for him to be seen by paparazzi.

But then again, he’s always been changing. He’s nothing like the scarred teenager Rose befriended in 1995. And it makes sense. It’s been over twenty years. She’s changed, too.

She checks in on him a lot in the year after Isobel leaves. She knows he can tell what she’s doing; he’s grateful, but he also assures her that he’s fine, that she doesn’t need to be worried about him.

After a while, her weekly check-ins turn into monthly check-ins. She’s got her own life to worry about, after all, and he seems to be doing better. A lot better.

He focuses on his music, and she focuses on Julie and Carlos and Ray.

Years go by. Carlos makes the baseball team; Julie writes her first song on her own; she and Ray celebrate their twentieth anniversary.

She gets sick.

Trevor comes to see her a few days after she moves into the hospital.

“Hey,” he says, voice rough and aggrieved and laced with pain.

They haven’t seen each other in months. They haven’t had a proper sit-down in years. They didn’t have a falling out, or anything like that. They just drifted apart, grew into different people with different priorities. It doesn’t hurt, but it does make her a little sad.

But he’s here now, and that has to be worth something.

“Hey,” she answers.

He sits down next to her hospital bed, reaches over to grasp one of her hands in both of his.

“How are you feeling?” he asks hesitantly.

She glances down to her hospital gown, to the machines beeping around her. “Like hell.”

“Yeah, stupid question.”

He looks so out of place, unsure of what to say. Trevor Wilson, international superstar, once voted most charismatic person of the year, at a loss of what to say to his oldest friend. Then again, everyone has been struggling with what to say to her lately.

“It’s really good to see you,” she says. She means it. She doesn’t have any regrets – in terms of lives, she thinks hers was pretty damn close to perfect – but she always thought it was too bad she and Trevor lost touch. He was her best friend for almost two decades, after all.

“You too. I wish…” he trails off, looking at her sadly. She can’t tell if he’s mirroring her thoughts or wishing they were seeing each other under different circumstances. He shakes himself, composes a smile as he leans closer. “Anyways. I just wanted to say – you’re the strongest person I know. If anyone can pull through, it’s going to be you. And once you get better –”

“I’m not getting better, Trevor.”

She’s accepted it a long time ago. She’s not scared. Well, not for herself. She is terrified of what she is leaving behind. Victoria, who has been trying so hard to make this easier on all of them. Julie, who has almost shut herself off since her diagnostic, who has been on the verge of tears for weeks. Carlos, still so young, who she won’t get to see grow up. And Ray, her soulmate, the love of her life, who is going to have to deal with the fallout of her death, who is going to have to help their children get through this and raise them on his own. She has spent hours sobbing just from the thought of it.

He doesn’t look surprised at her admission, but he intakes a shaky breath, his grasp on her hand tightening.

“I’m covering your hospital bills.”

What?

“What? No, Trevor, you really don’t have to –”

He shakes his head, cutting her off, his voice leaving no room for argument. “I have the money for it. And… Ray doesn’t need one more thing to worry about.”

She closes her eyes to fight the onslaught of tears. Ray has been at the forefront of her mind since this all started, how he will cope, how he will take care of two grieving teenagers on his own, how he will try to stay strong for all three of them. She’s already asked Victoria to keep an eye on him after she goes. She knows her sister would have done it either way, but she _needed_ to know, needed the peace of mind that came from knowing someone would be looking out for her family.

“Okay,” she manages, still fighting back tears. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

She opens her eyes to meet his, brimming with unshed tears and looking at her earnestly.

“You’re the greatest friend I’ve ever had, Rose. I know I haven’t – haven’t always been there, but… you’ve _always_ been there for me.” Her tears, which have been building up since he took her hand, start silently trickling down her face as he continues talking. “You saved me so many times. I can’t ever thank you enough for that.”

She swallows, trying very hard to find the words to answer him. The thing is, she doesn’t even know what she wants to say to him – that he doesn’t need to thank her, that he helped her too, that he was her best friend for so long and she’s so sorry they ran out of time.

“What are friends for?” she eventually gets out, her voice choked up.

He chuckles quietly.

They don’t speak after that. But he stays next to her, holding her hand in his until she falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
